“You look deformed.”
“Good.” Sweat trickled along his spine, and it wasn’t from Susan’s heat. If they were attacked, it would be hard to fight with a female strapped to his back. Dragging his right leg to add to the disguise, Sorin followed Ahote across the dark courtyard to the castle wall.
They climbed the battalions. When they reached the top, no one approached them. Sorin sighed. The guards defended against invaders, not escaping thieves wearing guard uniforms.
This section had three males securing the wall with their attention on the forest, not the stairs. Quiet as a wraith, Ahote disposed of them.
Sorin raced to the wall and glanced over the side with a grimace. Not wasting any more time, he checked on the security of Susan’s makeshift harness. If he jumped from this height he’d survive, but he couldn’t promise the same for his human mate. He’d have to take the risk of climbing. The dark should help hide them. He threw his leg over the wall’s edge but stopped as someone grabbed his arm.
“Wait.” Ahote pulled him off. “What are you doing?”
“I have to climb down. Susan’s too frail and sick for jumping.”
“Swing her around to your chest and keep her between you and the wall. I’ll go down first, and if she slips out of the harness I can catch her.”
Sorin blinked. He grabbed the hunter’s shoulders and nodded. A knot formed in his throat, preventing him from talking. Ahote had no allegiances to him or his pack.
Ahote undressed and shifted to feral form before jumping.
Sorin watched him land then tossed the cape to the floor. He lay Susan on top of it and undressed as well. After shifting to feral form, he held her to his chest and cinched the belt tight around their waists. He then settled her limp arms about his neck but they fell to his sides and Susan slumped away from his body.
Snarling, he scanned the area and listened intently. Still no alarms. His gaze caught the cloak on the ground. With a flash of genius, he tore a strip of cloth from the cloak and tied her hands together behind his neck. He smoothed the hair from her face and planted a gentle lick on her fevered forehead. He had to save her.
Please, Goddess, he’d just found her. He swung over the edge, digging his claws deep into the mortar between the stones. With each move he held his breath, prepared to catch his female if she slipped or the mortar gave.
“Hurry,” Ahote whispered from below.
Growling, he swallowed his sharp retort. The hunter meant well. So far he’d done everything he could to aid in the rescue. Sorin couldn’t have asked for a better companion.
The descent took longer than either of them wanted but he finally touched ground with his mate intact. He sucked a deep, shaky lungful of air. The muscles in his arms trembled from the abuse. Not bothering to untie Susan, he raced toward the forest with her pressed to his chest. Running as if in civil form, Sorin didn’t have the speed of Ahote, who sprinted on all fours.
The hunter made it to the forest first.
Tripping on the uneven ground, Sorin fought with his top-heavy balance. The last thing Susan needed was for him to crush her in a fall. Moonlight shadowed the forest trees and allowed him to see the road. His companions waited by the cart just inside the tree line.
Peder had shifted, his clothes lined the bottom of the empty cart—probably to soften Susan’s ride—and Kele waited next to him.
Sorin laid Susan inside, cushioning her head with his hand until he made a temporary pillow out of Peder’s shirt.
She stirred and grasped his hand.
“It’s all right. I have you now,” he whispered close to her ear, loathe to move his hand from hers.
She whimpered as he retreated, and the sound shredded his heart. Benic would pay dearly. He took hold of the cart’s yoke.
“We’ll cover more ground if I push at the same time as you pull.” Ahote gripped the edge of the cart.
Sorin nodded, gratitude thick in his scent. They raced against time, with Susan’s life as the prize.
Chapter Forty
Taking the steps two at a time, Benic climbed the stairs of the tower back to Susan. What had possessed him to place his laboratory at the top? He carried a pot of willow bark tea to help reduce her fever and rehydrate her body. He should have had it on hand prior to infecting her.
The immunity-boosting medicine should be cool enough to administer now. He’d used this combination of essences to heal dying shifters many times over the decades. It had worked wonders.
His plan to make Susan a vampire still might work. He hadn’t expected her to mate a shifter. Why would an Apisi give a stray, unknown creature a mating bite? Bed her, yes, but not claim her. Shifters with their marking fetishes. Mine, mine, mine.
He ran past his open bedroom door and halted so quickly he almost spilled the tea. Backpedaling, he peeked inside.
A broken metal bracelet lay next to a prone, naked Inacio.
Benic roared and entered the room. No sign of Kele anywhere. “Inacio.” He toed the incubus’s side hard enough to make him moan.
Inacio sat up, holding his head. “My face hurts.” He spoke with a lisp. His hands slid away to reveal swollen lips and a blackened eye. “Benic?”
“Where’s the shifter female I left chained to the bed?”
“Someone attacked me.” Inacio wiped the blood from his lips. “And you’re worried about your new pet?”
Benic rolled his gaze toward the ceiling in the direction of his laboratory. “Susan!” He handed Inacio the teapot and scrambled up the stairs to where he’d left her. The door was already open, the cot empty.
No.
He grabbed a glass beaker and smashed it against the wall by the doorframe. The shards flew in all directions.
Inacio ducked the broken glass as he stepped into the room. “I take it your project escaped as well?”
“Yes.” The snap of his response crackled between them. “How?” he pleaded to the empty room. “I have twenty-foot walls surrounding this castle, guarded all day and night, and a cursed incubus lounging in my tower. How did they get out unnoticed?”
“A small rescue party. It was a hunter with midnight-black hair who knocked me out.” Inacio rubbed his jaw. “A very handsome one.”
“Ahote.” He spat out the name. “They can’t be far.” Susan burned with fever. It could kill her if left untreated. The fools weren’t saving her. He grabbed the cold metal syringe of the immunity-boosting medicine and placed it in a satchel. “Where’s the tea?”
Inacio set the pot on the table. “What is this about? What does this female mean to you?”
“None of your business.” He was quite aware of the incubus’s possessiveness. The idiot was a lovesick fool.
Benic emptied the flask of water on the floor then poured the tea into it, spilling some in the process. The flask’s cork fit snugly in the neck.
He knew the forest best among the castle dwellers, and he could move faster alone. Somehow he’d have to stop the shifters and convince them he meant no harm. He groaned in silence. They would never believe him. How would he explain the virus and the mutations it created without sounding mad? Vampires had kept their suspicions that all races of Eorthe evolved from a common ancestor, for centuries. He hadn’t a name for this ancestor until he met Susan. Humans were their missing link. Should he even speak of it?
He raced from the laboratory back to his bedroom where he gathered a travel cloak and his sword. The blowdarts rested on top of his bedside chest. He fingered the set. It would make his job easier to just knock the shifters out; however he’d have to spend the next fifty years rebuilding their trust. He’d already done damage the first time he took the females. He didn’t want to repeat the same mistake.